Village of fading dreams (3)

VILLAGE OF FADING DREAMS (3) After four years of residence at Chiltern Towers, Maxwell had still not grown fully acclimatised to life at the village. A lover of solitude, he grew tetchy over small talk, which frequently sprouted in the lounge like its fake multi-coloured blooms and long, tapering, green leaves that resembled rushes bowing over glazed vases, when he simply wanted to sit and think for a few minutes, staring out at the beds of mauve and yellow begonias vividly alert and the stone fountain showering water over the fishpond.

‘Come over here and talk to the ladies!’ Hugh would call out in his growly voice made mushy by dentures. Which made Maxwell even more embarrassed. ‘They need bags of help with the jigsaw puzzle.’

‘Too enigmatic for me,’ Maxwell dismissed, striving in vain for a quick, witty response that only added to everyone’s bewilderment, then embarrassment.

‘Come and be sociable,’ persisted Hugh. With a wafty wave, he looked unashamedly pregnant with a large, rotund belly hanging over his trouser belt. A doctor in semiretirement, no longer practising but assessing medical exam papers part-time, he proved a proper fusspot much of the time. In the mornings he lived for his i-pad, but he too claimed to love solitude, in which his thoughts got lost in the clouds of acrid Indian tobacco smoke floating above his grey hair still thick as thatch but plastered down. The stench made you choke along the corridor in the east wing of the fourth floor. Unlike Maxwell, another agnostic, he sought balance in life by playing bridge twice a week at the Towers and unlocking St Michael’s Anglican on Sunday mornings for social reasons.

‘Leave him alone,’ croaked Doreen, wispy thin in spite of the fruit cakes she baked for the coffee break between games of bridge ‘He just wants to drink his cuppa in peace.’

‘He’s a very good talker, so we should encourage him to come out of his shell,’ loud enough for Maxwell to hear. Hugh, with a smug smile and a mouthful of sponge cake.

‘Why is he sitting next to the heater? It’s not turned on.’

‘Because he hopes he’s not noticed behind that pillar,’ replied Hugh, reading the body language.

Maxwell hastily sipped his tea and fled. Often he felt guilty as well as awkward about not accepting an invitation to join a group for chitchat; it was hard to resist such pressure, such taunting. If he’d stayed he would have squirmed, become more agitated, tongue-tied, irritated by the mindless banter on medical conditions amongst the hard-of-hearing, the hard-of-remembering, the old diehards hard of changing.

The other thing that galled him was the wastage of electricity. Orange down lights would be left switched on over the swimming pool as if it were floodlit Hisense Arena

as well as lamp stands glowing in the lounge through the night, even when all down lights were left blazing.

‘We want to convey the impression that the Towers is alive,’ manager Maeve Warren would assert, though she appeared to cope less ably with a resident’s passing to the other side than any of the oldest inmates, who did their best to pay their last respects while remaining surprisingly phlegmatic. ‘I still can’t get used to the upset,’ Maeve lamented, shaking her head, before casting a doleful glance at the table outside reception on which such announcements were made, alongside a vase of flowers in remembrance from the garden.

‘What, burning all through the night?’ queried the nona, Kelvin Fields, with the shiny, round face, invariably dressed in a pale green suit for resident meetings. ‘I thought all that grand over-the-top illumination was for security reasons. To frighten the buggers away.’

‘Of course, that goes without saying,’ said Maeve, ‘but it’s also good marketing.

Keeps us in the public eye, even though we’re all tucked up and fast asleep. Plus, if anyone’s wandering downstairs during the night we don’t want them stumbling over the furniture.’ ‘”He” or “she”, you mean!’ Wilf called out. ‘”Anyone”’ is singular. He gave a shake of the head and a heavy sigh. ‘It’s quite simple really.’

The third factor in Maxwell’s discomfiture with Chiltern Towers was the triumvirate who ran the residents committee. The treasurer, Dick Bellchambers, took his role extremely seriously, scrupulously casting a judicious eye over the accounts, but could be a cantankerous bully in getting his own way. If anyone durst enjoy the one swimming lane in the Costello pool, he would pull rank and expect the miscreant to go and frolic in the spa. Warwick Holman, the silver-haired president, built like a bullocking front-row forward, oft referred to as the arch delegator, commanding attention with his sharp grey suits, air of quiet authority and strategic mention of a resident’s generous deed or worthy idea, but could turn pushy or frosty if you refused to do your bit and join the committee. Ross Welk whinged and sighed about the onerous workload of secretary, though he refused to stand down, never replied to residents’ queries or laments, but invariably put a copy of the skimpiest of noncommittal minutes in mail boxes by two o’clock that same afternoon.

A satisfying day, sales manager Michaela said to herself, taking an educated sniff over her glass of gin and tonic. Another sale notched up and not too hard to clinch.

When an old biddy has made up her mind or had it made up for her, that Chiltern Towers is the place to live out her final years, far be it from me to dissuade her. Fran, ninety-two years old and too far-gone mentally to realize that the benefits this place offers are quite beyond her. I tell would-be clients - well, the few under seventy they have chosen the right time to buy the lease of an apartment here, since they can take full advantage of the amenities. But I’m obliged to advise the oldies that it’s not the best decision to go through with the contract if they leave soon after, because they cannot attend to themselves. They act like stunned mullets that we don’t employ staff to act as carers or even nurses. We can give CPI if necessary, but the ETA night staff

will call for an ambulance. And if that Cyril Oddy tells me again I’ve got the best legs he’s ever laid eyes on, I’ll boot him in the balls!’

Gerard Baxter had displayed several of his watercolours on tables around the lounge and was anxiously wondering if the projector was correctly set up by Jurgen to enable him to give his annual demonstration. About fifty residents were already seated on chairs or settees or moving about the tables poring over the selection of his work set out on easels or lying flat on tables.

‘I’m delighted to be speaking to my friends,’ Gerard began in his usual cosy, avuncular manner. ‘It’s no exaggeration to say that we are a real family at Chiltern Towers and I thank you for coming along this afternoon. Watercolour has been my life. I often think back to my first day at Scotch College when Dr Grayling asked, ‘Now, young man, what do you want to be when you grow up?’ ‘An artist, sir,’ I replied. ‘A what?’ ‘An artist.’ He wasn’t impressed. Years later when I was about to leave Scotch, having matriculated in the Classics, Dr Grayling again asked me.

‘An artist, sir,’ I said. ‘Same as last time.’ I never swerved from my ambition. I’ve lived a truly wonderful life, so I’ve been most fortunate and very privileged. I’ve visited forty-one countries and shown in many galleries round the world.

‘Water colourists are an interesting breed. There’s never any rivalry. I remember in 1936 I was given my first colouring-in box of Mickey Mouse watercolours.

Watercolour is the only medium not static. I’m still trying to control the medium.

See?’ as he dabbed some paint onto the wash of blue and drips began to skirl down the canvas. ‘I’m also obsessed with light. So much of the effect I’m after depends on the contrast between light and dark. That helps to create perspective and dramatic tension. I’m not interested in reporting the facts, but interpreting them. So I’m not using a transparent blue for this Cyprus sky but opaque blue. Note the lovely white fascia of this building or how the folds of these garments catch the light.

‘No, I don’t rub out the pencil marks but paint over them. I don’t paint how it looks, but how it feels. I’ll change the intensity of light, add human figures, invent the season etc. I enjoy playing God. You get savvy. In Morocco you have to shoot your camera from the hip because of the locals’ sensitivity to cameras, their deep suspicion.

‘I used my wife, Charmian, as a reference for height. I’m a traditional realist painter.

I can’t see anything meritorious in abstraction, coloured lines or found objects. But photos do help me to experience the original smells, noise, colours, light etc. I might also do an on-site sketch. I like to vary the shapes and spaces I’ve left to fill in later.

I create a painting to be evocative of place, not truthful, though I do have a photographic memory. Helped by 75,000 colour slides for my Agfa projector.

‘With my painting of a bunker, the ladies didn’t like it and told me so. I realised that they would say, ‘I hate that bunker’, because my painting reminded them of a bad round they’d played.’ Baxter appreciated the sputter of polite laughter from several former and still-practising golfers in the audience.

‘I use sable camel hairbrushes. I’ll do the wash in cerulean and yellow. Now I begin to glimmer a pattern of light and dark before I apply the paint on wetness. The brush dances around; all I do is hang onto the end of it.

‘Voila!

‘Painting in Singapore takes forever because of the humidity; in central Australia it’s so dry that paint on the palette evaporates very quickly. Note the variation light to dark. Remember, you don’t need to be a biologist but the shape of the object, say a tree, is vital. Use the side of the brush to get the texture of foliage. Add a touch of cobalt blue or raw sienna here to achieve a heightened effect.’

‘Finally, ladies and gentlemen, is there any general business?’ said Warwick Holman, president of the residents committee, no doubt pleased by the state of the finances and Kelvin Fields’ usual attempt at a good-humoured story that rounded off the gardening report.

‘Yes, over here, Mr Chair!’ Beryl Smithers was stretching out of her seat behind a pillar to catch Warwick’s eye.

‘Yes, Beryl, wait for the mike.’

With which Dr Hugh bustled over as best he could, given the unashamed bulge of belly fat sagging over his belt, to the front rows on the far side of the lounge. ‘You switch it on here. No, here!’

‘I feel I have to say something about the furnishings.’ Beryl’s usually sharp and quirky voice was strangely quiet and croaky, as if she were about to cry. ‘And what I’m going to say is only my opinion, right?’

‘Right you are,’ Warwick muttered, obviously vexed and sensing the worst, his eyes skittering over the audience as if gauging the mood of the residents.

‘When Dylan and I came to check out the Towers, we were both struck by the beautiful garden and the tasteful decoration of this lounge-dining area. We quickly decided that this was going to be our new home and we were very happy. But now seven years later, with these new furnishings we are decidedly unhappy. The tone of the place has dropped off. Now that’s only my personal opinion, right?’

Warwick was looking indignant. ‘There’s another hand raised over there.’

Hugh took the microphone to Hazel Dudgeon, whose voice since the hysterectomy was very flaky. She struggled to her feet, looking awfully frail and frumpy, much less imposing than Maxwell remembered before her operation. At water aerobics four months back, she was capable of extending each leg in turn almost to the surface, pointing and pulling her red-polished toes without losing balance. ‘I agree with Beryl. This place needs more colour. We should bring in someone who knows what they’re doing.’

Maxwell’s stifled gasp turned a few stiff necks.

‘It’s too late for that now,’ asserted Warwick, his eyes narrowing. ‘There’s no money in the kitty. We’ve just spent over three hundred thousand dollars. You entrusted the committee to go ahead with the refurbishment and we did so. Libby?’

A smartly groomed lady displaying an immaculate head of thick, white bouffed-up, wavy hair and pearl necklace and suited up in black jacket and skirt stood up. Lady Libby Farthingale from the penthouse. The view was so grand up there on the sixth floor, she could even see Tullamarine airport on a clear day through her binoculars. ‘I agree with the other two ladies. I’d like to organise a group of discontents and see what suggestions we can come up with. There has to be some alternative to ginger the place up. This large space is so unfashionably dull.’

Warwick’s face took on an apoplectic hue. ‘But what would that achieve? Your elected committee has worked through the processes. And your own husband was part of that committee.’ Wringing his hands, Alexander looked crestfallen. ‘We still have a few more items of furniture and trimmings to install, so wait till you have seen the whole picture.’

Alexander himself stood up, then glanced down at his wife, who, frowning up at him, urged him with almost imperceptible nods. ‘There are quite a few of us who . . .’ he stuttered, his voice reduced to a dry whisper, ‘don’t have much faith in this . . . this interior designer . . . decorator.’

His wife gave a decisive nod as if to end the matter.

‘To be frank, I don’t see any point in this discussion.’ Holman was once again sounding more like his authoritative self, with jutting jaw and stony eyes. ‘Decisions have been made.’

‘Warwick, may I speak?’ Maxwell’s voice was more wavery than usual. Hawkish eyes were boring into the back of his skull.

A look of resignation or helplessness passed over the president’s florid face.

‘Definitely the last speaker.’

‘Thank you, Mr President. With respect, I can’t allow the notion that a professional designer didn’t know what she was doing. Quite obviously, she did. For our demographic she deliberately chose autumn colours: browns, beige or stone, green.

Understated colours, admittedly, but for me they have a soothing effect. Even where colour has been indulged, such as the two armchairs in the corner, where the purple is a dark shade made more sober by the grey carpet. But this carpet is not merely a neutral grey, because if you look at it closely, you can see how it appears to change colours according to whether shadows or sunlight fall on it.’

Someone yawned very loudly – most likely, Cyril Oddy in row three, who must have remembered his hearing aid.

‘For if you sit with your back to the front window, you can observe how the light brown lines seem to change to white. Indeed, this transformative grey carpet should

provide plenty of talking points, as any work of art or design is bound to do. Witness Federation Square in the heart of Melbourne. So pick out different webs of lines that reflect the light from the front window. Then note how many circles there are, wheels within wheels.

‘Take the large mirror that dominates the back wall, which some of you detest. It’s not grotesquely over-the-top at all. It offers impressive depth of field and if you avoid admiring yourself, you gain a lovely clear view of the flowerbeds behind you and even the landscape across the road. The so-called hubcap mirror over the hearth picks up the theme of the circle, found in the small side tables with their glass surface, which means you have less chance of tripping over those square wooden tables that we formerly had and there’s no longer any excuse for placing your cups and saucers on the arms of the settees.

‘Now that trolley next to the exit that a couple of you said you wouldn’t want in your home. I should hope not. It would only be wasted there. Its two cartwheels give a rustic flavour that John Constable himself would have been proud to own. I would have thought that the notion of working recycled materials . . . take Picasso, for example . . . or Marcel Duchamps’ Fountain . . . would have appealed to you. Just be thankful that we weren’t presented with a porcelain urinal as the main feature of the lounge.’

In spite of the sorry shakes of the head, tut-tutting and suppressed oohs, Maxwell bored on.

‘And as for the two silver urns, they complement each other at both ends of the bar. I concede that our chef Andre and I had a bit of a chuckle at the tall, grandiose, fluted one resembling the UEFA cup, a soccer competition in Europe, but it certainly doesn’t bother me. Even great art and interior decoration invite discussion, not whingeing bitchery.’ Gasps from the audience, as Maxwell found himself cresting a wave. ‘Because the ceiling is so high, we need these silver trophies and those beautiful tall vases with sprays of blooms and the ice bucket with four bottles of wine, to create an upward movement and fill those vacant, dead corners.

‘And finally, if most of us want brighter colours, which resident will be game enough to act as the arbiter of taste? I mean, which brighter colours would you choose?’

Maxwell sat down, exhausted, still trembling, ready to shrink. The sixty or so residents, a third of whom were resident ratbags, were stunned into silence, but it wasn’t long before Maxwell felt Warwick bending down to squeeze his arm. ‘I think we shut those old dragons up,’ he muttered with a smarmy smile.

Maxwell was pacing up and down, wondering how Bernie would react when he saw how the chairs from the dining room had been parked around two opposite walls of the recreation room, when his sole friend knocked on the door. ‘Is he here?’

Maxwell kept mum, waiting for Bernie to look about him and register a reaction.

‘I’m terribly sorry I’m late, young man,’ said Bernie, entering the recreation room more flustered and flushed than usual, smacking his lips. ‘I was knocking back a glass of red and I couldn’t get away.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Maxwell, who invariably stumped up early, impatient to get started, having scrupulously shoved the table up a few inches to set it plum in the middle of the room, ran his fingers over the top of the net to make doubly sure it was perfectly upright and the metal clasps holding it were screwed tight at both sides.

After the chatty warm-up, it wasn’t long before Maxwell found his older adversary wasn’t on top of his game, netting the ball or driving too long, even breaking wind without apologising. In fact, Maxwell won the first set comfortably, mainly due to his opponent’s slow reflexes and unforced errors. At the change of ends, Maxwell noticed large splashes of water on the floor, which were not visible before the warmup.

‘Perspiration,’ commented Bernie.

‘You don’t normally perspire because I do enough for both of us.’

Bernie giggled and served the ball into the net. ‘Love-one.’

‘Are you sure it’s sweat?’ Again there was a farting sound and an embarrassed chuckle. ‘I think you’re a bit tiddly in more ways than one.’

‘Look, mate, I’m terribly sorry. I meant to go to the toilet beforehand, but there wasn’t much time. I was offered a glass of red by Noel and Muriel and I couldn’t say no. Oops!’ as the ball failed to bounce on Maxwell’s side of the table.

‘I’m looking forward to getting back on dry land,’ said Maxwell, whose cross-trainers were beginning to slip and squeak on the damp patches.

It was only the third time in two years that Maxwell went on to win the senior singles world championship.

The picture of a forlorn resident sitting in one of the two armchairs near reception, looking out for a yellow taxi that never arrived, was fast becoming a major bone of contention. It took Maxwell a mere ten minutes to stride through the back streets of Chiltern Hill to reach Sabatini Hospital. At the March residents meeting, Warwick Holman offered a solution.

‘Cabbies are not inclined to take us on short trips, because financially it’s not worth their while, even when they’ve upped the charge astronomically, hoping to take advantage. I’d like to draw up a list of volunteer drivers from willing residents. It goes without saying, this is a very good cause for our friends. I see one hand raised already. Thank you, Damian. And over there, Nicholas.Ferry. Thank you, Nicholas.

Are there any more takers for this worthy cause?’

In the blanket of silence edged with hushed whispers, Maeve stepped up to the lectern. ‘Can everyone check their blue phone is plugged in. Several residents have told the office their phones aren’t working. If you have a cleaner, make sure they plug the phone back in. If we send someone up, it costs you. More importantly, your swipe won’t work if there’s an emergency. By the way, talking of emergencies, if you get stuck in the lift, don’t panic. Just press the gold button and we’ll yell up the lift shaft to reassure you.’

‘Excuse me, Maeve,’ Gerard Baxter was already on his feet, not waiting for the mike.

‘I remember being stuck in a lift in New Delhi for a couple of hours. It put me off Indian food for life.’

‘Another thing,’ the manager pressed on through the laughs, ‘Visitors’ dogs not on leash or dogs in corridor. That’s just not on. Can you report it? Time, date and photograph it.’

Kelvin Fields shuffled up to the mike. ‘The topiaries on the west side are struggling.

The oaks are thieving the moisture. They are half the size they were ten years ago.

And if anyone else wants to take over the garden report, please see me sooner than later.’

As ever, Gerard Baxter as liaison with the kitchen began with a comment on the importance of dining in the restaurant as a vital social function. ‘Even if it’s only once a week, it’s always enjoyable to meet up with friends over a glass of wine. The fact is, the kitchen is in dire straits. Over three thousand dollars in the red and we don’t want to lose our restaurant. If you don’t wish to come down to eat, you can order room service. And remember, good people: bring your glasses back. Last time I did an audit, three hundred had walked in the past three months! Finally, The Kitchen and Safety mob mandated a new floor. I don’t know how our good chef, Andre, is going to cope, but he always manages somehow, bless him!

‘Oh, by the way, on a personal note, I have difficulty cleaning my knives in the dishwasher. I can’t get rid of the grease. Does anyone have any suggestions?’

‘Fairy’s the best!’ gushed Dr Hugh. ‘Lots of it.’

The following month Gerard Baxter was still labouring to whip up more support for the restaurant: ‘We are still worried about the kitchen. We have fixed costs, electricity, gas etc, so we as clients pay the tab. Patronage of residents is therefore critical. As we come under the classification of Retirement Villages, we are constrained by very strict regulations about how we buy food. The source of the food has to be traced, so food is more expensive. We can’t afford to subsidise the kitchen to the tune of six to eight thousand dollars a year. We can just cope with two or three, as we have in the past.

‘We are maintaining our target of one hundred meals per week, but repairing the kitchen floor cost two thousand dollars. We are working on new menus. I’m a real

sweet nut myself. As for attendance, we’re good on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.’

The chef, Andrew, fondly referred to as Andre by residents, had worked as a chef in Belgium, Switzerland and Yorkshire, having completed his training in Bournemouth.

Willowy, fresh-faced, good-looking with a charming smile, he was very popular; indeed, having clocked in at noon, he frequently made time to chat with all residents, not just the regular diners, particularly those unable to go beyond the front door unless they were accompanied by family visitors or carers.

Maxwell also enjoyed Andre’s company, but felt guilty that he was a vegetarian. On the rare occasions that he took dinner in the restaurant, he enjoyed the food very much, especially the first half of the fresh salmon before it became too filling. He was disappointed, though, that the portion of vegetables was so small and the big slab of fish so dominant. Andre never appeared hurt by what must have seemed a slight.

They continued to have a yarn about their beloved soccer clubs and favourite watering holes on the south coast of England.

Occasionally when there was an emergency, such as the electricity being turned off, Andre was called upon to make sandwiches at lunchtime. ‘The first round of chicken sandwiches have gone already. Did you try one?’ he said to Maxwell.

‘No, no, I’m a vegetarian,’ he said. ‘Don’t you remember?’

‘Yes, I know, but it always amazes me how many vegetarians love chicken sandwiches.’

‘Well, I enjoyed a couple of your egg and lettuce sandwiches very much,’ Maxwell lied. Gulping down some tasty chicken on the quiet was a rare treat.

Quite often Maxwell caught Andre contemplating the empty tables, wondering what he must bethinking, but unable to offer consolation, except for praising his delicately soft cakes, chocolate or apple and sultana for Sunday afternoon tea. The embarrassment and frustration of constant talk about the decline of custom in the restaurant must have disappointed him, but he held his own counsel and never complained. Besides, he liked being his own boss, mixing with likeable people and enjoying his eight-hour shift that escaped peak-hour traffic. Working flat out alongside a dozen chefs in one of Chiltern’s best restaurants did not appeal. Yet cooking for two tables only, a dozen patrons in all, seemed a waste of an eight-hour day, at times excruciatingly boring. At least, numbers for room service were gradually improving with the average age of occupants rising.

The treasurer, Dick Bellchambers, a short, stout man was bent over his monthly report for May, umming and erring, which invariably meant bad news. ‘I’m afraid . . . err . . . the fact of the matter is . . . err . . . we have to put up a new cooling tower. The old one is on its last legs. The cost is . . . err . . . $95,000. Costing for installation is between $250,000 and $300,000. This will entail a huge crane hanging over the place

for several weeks. Fitting up two eight-ton parts of the tower. So piping connections will affect the heating.’

Maxwell’s stomach gave a lurch. What would the new residents think? They would have just shelled out one million dollars at least for a two-bedroom apartment and already they were being slugged. Frequently, he would rue his own decision to sell up and move into a more expensive abode, where you retained little control over your finances.

The treasurer tried to make light of the matter. He’d taken his glasses off and blindly peered into the stunned silence with a rueful smile. ‘Be grateful we have a capital fund that allows us to delay payment till we leave the place.’

Still squirming in his seat at the prospect of waving goodbye to more of his life savings rather than an image of being borne out of Chiltern Towers in a coffin, Maxwell’s thoughts were distracted by manager Maeve Warren trying to adjust the microphone.

‘Good morning, everyone! May I remind you that we shall be forced to take on another staff member for the office. We are all getting older, more forgetful. The average age of our residents is eighty-two. You like spending more time chatting with staff about the weather and other worldly matters, but the staff just don’t have the time. They have a job to do.’

Maxwell held an image of the hysterical reception area half an hour after it had officially opened: Young Klee, a new recruit to Team Chiltern, was admittedly hugging his vacuum-cleaner but still waxing about his new flatmate who’d brought with him a de luxe fridge big enough to displace packets and tins littering their island bar; Marion, the drama queen ERA, who’d suffered three calls during her night watch, still dithery about her loss of sleep; Rhonda was fuming in her strident voice about the traffic-crawl that morning through the leafy side streets of Chiltern and ‘Who’d let that tradie in? He hasn’t signed the book!’

‘It’s an unusual forename, Klee.’

‘Yes, I like it,’ snapped the mop-headed Klee cheerily, wearing the vacuum on his back and trailing a cord round the tables. ‘Mum was crazy about some artist.’

‘Paul Klee? The Belgian.’

‘Yeah, that’s the one.’ Having unwound the cord, he was kneeling at the socket, his big size 12 boots standing on their toecaps.

‘Feet of Klee,’ Maxwell mused. ‘Just be thankful she didn’t call you Pissaro.’

‘Why’s that?’ said Klee, wearing an eager but puzzled expression.

‘Oh never mind. By the way, those aren’t my biscuit crumbs,’ said Maxwell, nodding down at his side table.’

Cedric insisted on going down to the Costello pool, much to Gladys’s reluctance.

She’d cornered Maxwell sitting in his favourite chair by the hearth, sipping tea beneath a vacant stare, looking out the large front window.

‘Maxwell, I’ve been hunting you for days. I understand you witnessed Cedric’s accident last week in the pool. Can you tell me what happened exactly? I worry sick when I’m not watching him.’

Maxwell was tossed out of his reverie; he’d forgotten all about last Wednesday morning’s water aerobics class. Then remembered with a shudder the almighty bang in the cold, echoey men’s change room and saw Cedric tottering backwards, clattering down against the door, slumped stunned.

‘Are you all right?’ said Damian, who was notorious for leaving his red boxer-short bathers in the change-room. He tucked his towel in at the waist and bent down to put a hand on Cedric’s puny shoulder.

‘I’m okay,’ gasped Cedric, a little spittle on his lip, his soft-spoken voice always mushy. It was hard to imagine the transformation that must have occurred in less than four years in a man skippering his own thirty-foot yacht with a three-man crew in the Bay out in all weathers of a Wednesday, to a doddery cripple with rheumatoid arthritis, crouching over a stick.

‘How’s your head?’ asked Maxwell. ‘That was an almighty bang.’

‘I didn’t hit my head,’ murmured Cedric in slow monotone, pouting with indignation.

‘No, he didn’t hit his head,’ Damian hastened to agree. ‘He hit his back. Let’s see if we can lift you up.’

Standing in the middle of the pool, Ben Golding was giving a demonstration, extending his arms at forty-five degrees across the surface, with the dumbbells just below the surface, then pushing them back behind as far as he could. ‘And back to forty-five. Do half a dozen of those. Now push them out in front. Down to fortyfive. Into the body. Up to the surface and hold.’ But a puzzled expression clouded his face, an anxious glance at his wife. ‘These dumbbells seem heavier than usual.’

A sudden revelation: ‘Or perhaps it’s just me,’ he chuckled, with another glance at his wife, whose usually sunny disposition puckered, as if she twigged that his cancerous body had just lost another round. But she knew that her Ben was now resigned to steady physical decline. Hadn’t his specialist alerted him to the inevitability with all those ugly cancers burnt off his legs? And yet he could still summon up a measure of good humour and a throaty chortle in public, still summon the energy to be of service.

At the residents meeting in August Warwick made an announcement that drew audible groans and facial lines of consternation: ‘We’ll proudly display the Australian flag at Chiltern Towers on Armistice Day, November 11 in remembrance

of Australian servicemen and women who lost their lives, especially those residents and all past-serving residents invited to attend the ceremony.’

It was an ex-naval captain, Walter Dudgeon, now a benign, wobbly land-lubber marooned on the fourth floor, who surprisingly had the gumption to struggle to his feet and condemn the idea. ‘We’ve had this suggestion knocked on the head for many years. I personally can no longer stand this particular ceremony, having suffered hundreds over the years.’

‘Well done, darling.’ Hazel’s whisper could clearly be heard on the mike. ‘Sit down again now.’

‘Excuse me, Mr President. I can’t get up. Where’s the mike?’

‘Hugh, over there!’ Warwick pointed to Wilf, who seldom left his bed before the clock reached double figures, slumped in an armchair in the furthest corner of the semi-circular seating arrangement.

‘Look here, I did my bit in the war. I served in Singapore. And I don’t mind admitting it was, excuse the expression, a bloody waste of time. If governments want to commemorate the war, I understand, but not retirement villages with grandiose pretensions.’

There was no doubting Warwick was taken aback. His tongue was rolling about his lips like that of a lizard preparing to strike. ‘As your president,’ he eventually delivered, dryly, ‘I intend to make this a captain’s choice, though I assure you that the other committee members all agree with me.’

It was the unassuming and upright Alexander Farthingale, nominal vice-president, turning crimson and looking down at his clenched hands and not towards his ladyship, who gave the lie.

‘We have carers,’ Maeve was complaining,‘ who come along at a specified time, but residents don’t appear to be at home. Or they are in bed asleep, so staff are obliged to physically take the carers up in the lift and open the door to let them in.’

‘Oh don’t split the infinitive,’ muttered Wilf, nestled deep in an armchair, waking up with a jolt.

‘All this takes up their time,’ continued Maeve. ‘I’m afraid we shall just have to charge you in future for this service. There were one hundred and sixty-five emergency call-outs for the ERA’s to deal with during the year. Don’t get me wrong.

We quite like those.’

The treasurer, Dick Bellchambers, declared a $46,072 surplus, largely because of the embedded network. ‘I’m sorry,’ he was already umming and erring, taking off his spectacles to peer blinking into the void. ‘In particular, I’m very sorry for the new residents. The fact is, the cooling tower is about to fail.’ Several heads immediately

began searching the ceiling. ‘So we have to stick a new one up . . . err . . . pretty quick smart.’

The lounge itself turned silent as graveyard dust; the occupants stiff as boards, then suddenly fidgety and twitching.

‘The erection of which will entail a huge crane, lifting two eight ton parts of crane.

Fitting it up will take some weeks. Which means the piping connections will affect the heating.’

Murmurs and whispers, heads nodding earnestly to neighbours.

‘Just be grateful we have a fund that allows us to delay payment till we leave thia place.’

Maxwell had an image of Joe Gargery’s wife berating the bewildered young Pip at the beginning of Great Expectations: Just be grateful, whatever.

‘The capital maintenance fund,’ Bellchambers droned on, fumbling on his glasses, ‘now stands at over one million dollars. This is a sinking fund paid by all residents when they leave. We have a twenty-year forward plan for improvements. This will be used for repainting – and remember this is a six-storey building. One more item, I’m afraid. Err, we need new lifts. You see . . .’

‘I have a good lift story,’ interrupted Gerard, disregarding the roving mike. ‘I remember being stuck in a lift in a 3-star hotel in New Delhi for a couple of hours.

That put me off Indian food for life.’

Several residents were left wondering where they’d heard that line before.

‘How are youse, Rhonda?’ asked the man in navy blue overalls, with red-splotched face and gingery tone to his thin hair, carrying a toolbox up to the reception desk.

‘Oh all right, I suppose,’ she sighed languidly to the tradie, ticking off the tenth time she’d been asked about her health over the office counter since 8.45. ‘Another day, another dollar. Now, let’s see … you’re Robbie, working in 325, a blocked toilet.’

‘Right on the button again, love.’

‘Have you got a swipe?’ she replied curtly.

‘Bingo!’ he popped back with a lop-sided grin, extracting its plastic folder from a breast pocket.with thick, pudgy fingers.

The phone rang. ‘Not another bloody scammer,’ thought Maxwell. ‘Hello?’

‘Maxwell, it’s Rhonda from front office. Tomorrow morning the electricians are coming to lay Broadband and will be working above your car park. Can you park your car in the visitors’ car park? It might be safer there.’

“Yes, of course, Rhonda.’ Next morning he drove past the security fence, round the pillars to the spaces lining the front wall and eased into the first free park. After lunch when he returned to his car, he was dismayed by a torn-off half-sheet of paper tucked under the windscreen wiper.

Next time – we will clamp Please DO NOT PARK HERE! READ THE SIGN. – Thankyou Chiltern Management Albie came puffing in from the vestibule, Herald Sun in hand, and burst upon Maxwell, who was imperceptibly sinking beneath the broad sheets of The Australian to avoid interruption.

‘Mate, I’ve got to tell someone.’ Desperation in his tone made Maxwell sit up and crinkle down the pages.

‘What’s up?’ The expansive frame of Albie was towering over him. He couldn’t help notice a streak of spittle on his lower lip.

‘I’ve just been told I’ve only got six months to live.’

‘Bloody hell! That’s terrible! Who told you?’

‘My GP. I’ve just come away. He didn’t beat around the bush. “You’ve got six months,” he said, right out.’

Maxwell was speechless. What could you say? What should you? And Albie had only just learned to float in the pool with two noodles tucked beneath his arms. He’d always been afraid of drowning. Not surprising really, given his weight, his swollen belly.

‘I had to tell someone. I can’t believe it. Six months!’

‘I’m sorry to hear it, Albie.’

‘I’d better go and tell the missus. She won’t believe it either.’

Thenceforth Albie seemed to drop out of Maxwell’s life - four weeks, at least. Until he saw a bloated, waddling Albie propped up by a very plump and proppy Phoebe bundling out the exit with three suitcases, apparently on their way to Toronto to stay with their eldest son. Six weeks later Maxwell bumped into a beaming Phoebe in the underground car park.

‘How’s Albie, Phoebe? I haven’t seen him for some while.’

‘He’s coping pretty good. He’s got eight months remission now, not six.’

‘That’s terrific news.’

‘Yes, isn’t it. In the past every so often we’d agree to go on a diet because we both put on so much weight. Now he says, “What’s the point? There’s so much good food to eat.”’ She gave her throaty chuckle. ‘He’s like a great big bear. In any case, it’s too soon to pop off now.’

‘I’m pleased to hear he’s in good spirits.’

‘So am I. For a while he was in a very dark place.’

On the morning of the September meeting, residents were all in a tizz.

‘WE HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE, the notice stated.

Maeve Warren was looking around the lounge over the top of her glasses to tick the names of the attendees ambling in, halting, scouring round for an empty seat, preferably an armchair.

After some perfunctory words by the president, she was called upon to speak: ‘Chiltern Towers is henceforth to be known as Chiltern Resort.’ There, that gobsmacked the punters. Then a few hyenic guffaws. ‘We’re thinking of having a few palm trees out front,’ she joshed, with a wavy hula motion across her ample bosom with both arms and a gleeful smile beneath blood red lipstick.

But Dora, that little mouse of a woman with a ferocious snap, gave her both barrels.

‘Yet you can’t even guarantee the aircon working at weekends. We are supposed to be a six-star establishment!’

Maeve’s gleaming smile soured in a blink. ‘I’m sorry that the aircon often seems to fail at weekends, but we have sought out an expert to explain what’s wrong.’

‘It’s just not good enough. Last night we were invited round to Donnybrooks Village.

Their car park was so clean, while here our car park is a filthy disgrace. There’s rolls of old carpet, black and white striped plastic tape, a tradie’s bucket of sand that’s been there for weeks. I’m ashamed of having my friends round to Chiltern. You’re supposed to be the manager. Why haven’t you done your job?’

‘How dare you be so rude!’

‘And don’t talk to me like that! We pay your salary!’

With a grating scrape of his chair, Warwick Holman was awkwardly getting to his feet in a trice. ‘Now let’s calm down, everyone, he said, palming the air down.

‘All right, Ben Goldman has a question. Good to see you back on your feet again,

Ben.’ ‘Yes, but missing one part, Warwick.’ Guffaws from Dr Hugh and whinnies from Cyril Oddy helped to ease the tension. ‘I’d like to ask about the state of play with the rust in the swimming pool.’

‘I can answer that,’ said Maeve grittily, still trembling. ‘A metallurgist was called in.

I’m still waiting for his final report.’

Maxwell looked over at old Dora, hoping for her final report but the old mouse no longer dormant had already delivered, though her pale, thin lips were still nibbling at something.

The previous night Maxwell had watched in spite of himself a promotion on the tele warning of the dire consequences of consuming a super-abundance of sugar in fruit juices and commodities made from flour, in particular cakes and sweet biscuits, as well as cans of lairy-coloured liquids known as fruit juices! Maxwell relished his fruit and vegies, but on the quiet was a sweet-biscuit junkie. As the voice-over spoke of sugar with the inscription in blazing capitals POISON! and warned of diabetes, the camera zoomed in on a bloated sac resembling a giant testicle bubbling away in a witch’s’ cauldron.

Then he remembered his dentist’s words. ‘Too many lollies will leave you with ringbarked gums and black spots beneath the gum line. There won’t be much I can do to rescue the situation.’

The following morning Warner, now diminutive, bald and squinting even with spectacles, a former academic and regular swimmer, who ploughed through water with a frenetic windmill action and stertorous exhaling. Born in Koblenz, a splash of Rhenish still ran through his veins, he was despatched by his Jewish parents to London just in time. Even now, surreal gargoyles of Shakespeare’s characters stalk through the London Underground of his misty imagination, fulminating barely understood slabs of gothic phrases that rendered Hitler a mere demonic cartoon.

Sniffing around for The Australian, Warner was walking by the coffee bar where Maxwell was bending at the fridge for the carton of milk. Although he subscribed to The Age every morning from a table in the vestibule, Warner vied with Maxwell for first rights to the communal copy of The Australian. ‘I find The Australian too rightwing for me, but I do like to get a balanced political commentary,’ he’d simper.

‘Hi there, Warner! How’s your leg?’

‘Still sore,’ he sighed. ‘It’s the back of my legs giving me trouble. But I’m still capable of swimming sixty laps every morning, no worries. I put my longevity down to a daily swim. Also I was lucky enough to find a good GP who told me about having a stent inserted for my angina. But you’re looking after yourself, you’re a keen walker, so your fitness must be pretty good.’

Maxwell looked doubtful. ‘How do you tell angina from an imminent heart attack?’

Warner was already making stroking motions down the left side of his chest. ‘It’s always the left side, the ventricle.’

‘I am getting strange sensations in my chest,’ conceded Maxwell gloomily. ‘But they’re only fleeting. Usually.’

‘I should have it checked out by your GP. Angina doesn’t kill you these days, but you should heed the warning signs. Don’t worry, it’s not a pacemaker job.’

That was little consolation. Maxwell sensed one of his panic attacks coming on, the very palpable flush rising on his face. He clutched at his breathing, compelled to sink down on a chair for fear of passing out.

Now in her early seventies, Shelley works at Sabatini, fifteen years a volunteer nurse.

Tuesdays and Thursdays, nine till one, with no breaks. The staff love these volunteers, for they never stop walking, never stop working, never stop for a coffee, so the full-time regulars can insist on taking their coffee breaks and smokos outside in the fresh air. She’s been volunteering for fifteen years now. Ever since the surgeons inserted a shunt just above the right side of her hairline to drain the blood from all the haemorrhaging. Twice the doctors rang her husband and three daughters to rush them to her bedside to say goodbye. Each time she pulled through. That’s why she’s here at Chiltern, volunteering. Sometimes her brain goes cloudy, she can’t think. But she’s still here, fifteen years later.

‘So now I give something back,’ she says. ‘I’m so close to death, it no longer perturbs me. Yesterday I was sitting bedside with an old woman, holding her hand.

She seemed completely out of it. Ready to go, I thought. “Is there anything I can get you?” I said. “A nice cuppa tea?” Her face screwed up as she struggled to think.

“No, no!” Then suddenly, “Hot chocolate!”’

‘Quick as she could, the old gal sipped and slurped, fearing she might not finish. I took the drained cup. Suddenly, her head lolled back with a sigh of relief. She knew it was time. “Would you like to say Our Father?” I said. No response, but a mumble of two or three phrases along with me. Some rosemary beads I promptly positioned in her hands, gently closed them and murmured, “Hail Mary, full of grace . . .”’

With eyes closed and breathing deeply through our noses, all nine of us positioned at different angles towards our leader in the middle, we must have sensed that these might be our last moments in the pool together. Maxwell felt a shiver in the upper part of his body out of the water.

‘Now I will remind you,’ said Ben, the instructor, ‘that next Wednesday, Patti and I will be away. I’m admitted into Sabatini for my six-monthly check-up, so I shall be staying there for one or two nights, if any at all. That shouldn’t stop you from coming down here and practising your own suite of exercises.’

‘Good luck!’ said Esme and all eight residents quietly applauded.

Maxwell waited for the broad beams of the others to make their slow, cumbersome climb up the steps clinging on to the handrail, then turned back to his leader.

‘I hope it all goes well, Ben.’ Smiling wryly, revealing uneven teeth that seemed clamped to his jaw, he said, ‘Well, you know, it’s out of my hands now. I have to have the op done or . . .’ He shrugged, his head lop-sided.

‘As bad as that, is it?’ Out of the corner of his eye, Maxwell caught Patti at the near end of the pool, slowly stacking away the dumbbells into their net holdall, casting a pitiful, moist-eyed gaze at her husband.

Ben shrugged, cocked his head on one side. ‘It’s the usual check-up, the usual scraping of the prostate, the scraping of the little bladder cancers my specialist needs to clean out so they don’t spread to other parts of the body.’

Maxwell recollected the older man having cancerous sores burnt from his legs a couple of years previously. Now they were reddish tinged and heavily swollen, the result of drinking so much water with all those antibiotics, resembling thick branches down to the puffed-up ankles, like piping. ‘So if the surgeon can excise all these small cancers, does that mean that’s the end of it?’

‘Oh by no means. I must still take the test every six months, which means at least one night in hospital, if not two, even three.’

‘What are you two yammering about?’ Cyril’s beak and squeaky voice were suddenly hovering between them. ‘You’re being very cagey.’

Maxwell was tempted to plough through the water to the steps, while Ben was not only far more tolerant, but capable of humouring bent-backed Cyril with the whiney screech. ‘We were talking about men’s matters,’ the instructor said, with that whimsical gleam in his eye.

‘What?’ screeched Cyril.

‘Where’s your hearing aid?’ Maxwell demanded.

‘Don’t be daft! I can’t wear it in the water.’ Turning to Ben: ‘Is it the old prostie you’re banging on about?’

‘Yes,’ said Ben. ‘I’m being scraped next week.’

‘You’re being what?’

‘Scraped,’ repeated Ben calmly, adding a slicing gesture with his hand.’

‘Scrapped? Listen, how often do yer have to get up in the middle of the night?’

‘How often do you?’ asked Maxwell.

‘I asked first, but anyways I’ll tell yer. Three times at least.’

‘Is that all?’ said Ben ruefully. ‘Lucky man!’ He turned towards Maxwell: ‘And you?’ he said gently.

‘Just twice,‘ Maxwell lied.

‘My Flo,’ Cyril jumped in, ‘has to get up at least ten times. It’s driving me scatty.’

Maxwell was already mounting the steps with ponderous tread, disgusted not only with Cyril but also himself.

‘I’m so glad I went,’ said Shelley. ‘It was a beaut night. I’d never been to a Spirit of the Outback before. Maeve Warren caused a sensation. Not so much because of the gorgeous number she wore, a bush frock patterned with mauve and reddish flowers, knee-length, but unflattering to her bust and bum, but she flounced into the lounge wearing a python round her neck! It was at least two metres long. Beryl Smithers said she was bloody mad. Someone could have gone and had a heart attack. Turned out it was Rick’s pet; her husband’s a vet.’

‘Good job it didn’t bite anyone,’ said Beatrice, who looked happier after her shoulder operation and showing off her newly permed hairstyle, a wavy, gingery blonde.

‘Pythons don’t bite,’ replied Shelley, quite the expert on exotic reptiles. ‘They crush the living daylights out of you. Maeve invited all the residents to drape it round them, but none showed willing. In fact, they shuffled back and retreated behind the bales of real hay brought in for some atmosphere. All except Babs. And she nearly fell over backwards trying to keep her head out of the way. Even the fellas looked ginger and slunk away. So Maeve’s hubby confined the snake, Monty his name, in the office for the rest of the night.’

‘Oo er. And what did you wear?’

‘I thought I’d make a bit of an effort and frock up. I put on matt lipstick and some bronzer under my cheekbones and along the bridge of my nose to add a bit of glow. I wore this pale blue dress with leg o’ mutton sleeves and a matching bonnet. And wouldn’t you just know it, I won a prize for best dressed!’

‘How lovely! said Beat, more generous post-op. ‘And did the others dress up?’

‘Dr Hugh was a real hoot in his rabbit-felt hat, westie, khaki pants bulging way over his leather belt and elastic-sided boots. Warwick Holman wore a dashing Akubra and check shirt.’

‘And how was the bush tucker? Did Andre serve up roo tail soup or witchetty grubs or quail with a hint of mint or . . .’

‘Hardly. It was much better than that. Very distinctive flavours. For starters, I chose damper with native thyme; for main, fresh barramundi with lemon myrtle and pepper berry; then for dessert I had the macadamia nut pudding with salted caramel sauce and wattle seed cream. Yeah, really delish.’

‘And what about that bush balladeer feller? The one who impersonates Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson.

‘Yeah, Don Mclean, smooth, lilting voice, not bushy twang. He wore moleskin trousers and recited The Man from Snowy River and Clancy of the Overflow. Now he’s got me learning I love a sunburnt country. We did it at state school. Remember those yarns of drovers and stockmen and . . .?’

‘Bullockies?’ suggested Beat. ‘They wuz around then.’

‘My word, they were! Now let’s see: Though earth holds many splendours, Wherever I may die, I know to what brown country My homing thoughts will fly.

‘Lovely, dear! Just don’t gallop through it. Say it with real feeling, clasp your hands together and look up to heaven.’

Soon after setting off on his walk to Chiltern Library, Maxwell’s train of reflection was broken by a high-pitched beep-beep, non-stop, irritating and replicating louder.

Reluctantly, he turned round to glare, only to see a little old Slim ‘Smiley’ Edson, with one hand on the tiller, beaming ear to ear, bounding along on Pegasus, his threewheeled scooter, its warning flag cheerily waving goodbye as he glided by.

‘Amazing,’ thought Maxwell. ‘In 1941 this guy, a raw young pilot, was flying a 64,000 pound bomber plane over Japan at three hundred miles an hour; now, seventy years later, he’s flying over an uneven strip of pavement at five kilometres an hour, revelling in every bump, with pedestrians courteously standing aside and smiling.

Maxwell was tempted to salute, but thought better of it.

‘Maxwell, please.’ The quiet, soothing voice of Dr Easdown made him look up at the now somewhat corpulent, bearded medico. He put down a well-thumbed copy of last year’s Readers Digest. The vocabulary quiz at least would exercise his brainpan plastic. ‘How are you?’

‘All right, I think.’

Easdown chuckled. ‘So why are you here then?’

‘I’m experiencing some strange sensations in the left side of my chest, the ventricle.

Perhaps I’m overdoing the exercise. At least two and a half hours a day, sometimes

four if I ride my bike on the creek trail.’

‘What?’ But that’s more than I do in a month!’

‘You see, I usually feel great when I’ve enjoyed a good work-out. Sometimes, though, I get these slight spasms when I’m swimming free-style in the village pool or when I’m lifting dumbbells in the gym.’

‘How heavy are these weights?’

‘I can lift eight kilos at a stretch.’

‘Just come over to the bed so I can listen to your heart beat.’ Easdown applied the stethoscope to both sides of the chest and even to the back of the shoulder, Maxwell was growing a trifle tense waiting for Easdown’s assessment.

Finally: ‘Perfect. These chest spasms are probably just muscular strain. Take it easy on the weights. Don’t lift them above your head. You won’t put muscle on at your age, but focus on maintaining the conditioning of your arms and strengthening your bones.’

‘Oh, thank God, doctor! If I were a better man, I’d give you a hug.’

Easdown chuckled. ‘Thank God, you’re not.’ He paused. ‘But no worse than the rest of them.’

Michael Small August 21, 2014-November 22, 2015